DTCC's DTC Launches Tokenization Service With 20 Signed Clients

The Depository Trust Company, the subsidiary of the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation that safeguards more than $114 trillion in assets, launched tokenization services on Wednesday, allowing eligible clients to mint tokenized representations of securities held at DTC.

The launch is the first production-grade bridge between the core of US post-trade infrastructure and digital-asset wallets at this scale. Twenty DTCC clients have signed agreements to access the service, including Citi, JPMorgan, Citadel Securities, Fidelity Investments, Alpaca, Clear Street, DriveWealth and Interchange Clearing.

What does the service actually do?

The DTCC Tokenization Service (DTS) converts securities between traditional book-entry form and tokenized form. Once minted, tokens are transferable to digital wallets while retaining identical ownership rights and investor protections to their traditional counterparts, according to the company's announcement.

That last detail matters for practitioners. A tokenized share settled through DTS is not a synthetic wrapper or a offshore representation; it is the same security, under the same custody chain, with an on-chain delivery mechanism.

The regulatory foundation was laid in December 2025, when the US Securities and Exchange Commission issued a no-action letter confirming it would not recommend enforcement action against DTCC's subsidiary over the proposed tokenization program. That letter removed the principal legal ambiguity that had kept large broker-dealers on the sidelines.

Which networks are live?

DTS currently operates on two rails:

• Canton Network, the privacy-enabled blockchain used widely in institutional markets
• DTCC's own Besu-based private network

Additional blockchain networks are planned for integration in 2027, the company said. Multi-chain support signals that DTCC intends DTS to function as network-agnostic infrastructure rather than a proprietary silo.

For context on the scale involved: DTC's custody base of $114 trillion is roughly four times annual US GDP, covering equities and exchange-traded funds that underpin mainstream brokerage activity. Tokenizing even a small fraction of that book would exceed the entire current market capitalization of real-world tokenized assets.

What does this change for market participants?

For the signed broker-dealers and banks, DTS provides a compliant path to hold and move securities on-chain without building parallel custody arrangements or relying on offshore token issuers. Custody, entitlement and corporate-action processing remain anchored at DTC, which means operational risk migrates toward a regulated incumbent rather than away from it.

DTCC framed the service as creating a "practical path" for tokenized securities adoption, language aimed at institutions that have waited for infrastructure-level support before committing to on-chain settlement.

The timeline ahead

The tokenization service is one stage in a broader roadmap. DTCC said in May that it plans a full service launch for trading of tokenized securities in October 2026, preceded by a pilot in July 2026.

That two-step sequence gives participants roughly nine months to test minting, wallet transfer and conversion mechanics before trading venues come online. Firms that integrate with DTS now will enter the July 2026 pilot with operational experience; those that wait will face compressed onboarding timelines against a hard October deadline.